From Reuters.com
The euro zone deal diagram
A diagram of “the euro zone rescue deal” shared by an unidentified adviser with one of the EU governments involved in the negotiations.
Gibberish… The fundamental flaw in all this is that the “plan” is predicated on the assumption that economic growth will materialize out of thin air and then carry on indefinitely.
A belated disclosure
On August 22, Reuters.com published a video entitled “Twitter through the eye of an artist,” a profile of the New York-based artist Michelle Vaughn. Vaughn is married to Reuters blogger Felix Salmon; although Salmon played no role in producing the video, that relationship should have been disclosed in the video. Reuters apologizes for the omission.
WITNESS: An evening with Ratko Mladic
By Paul Holmes
More than 18 years have passed since my first encounter with Ratko Mladic but I still see him standing there, an intense, angry look in his eyes. He clasped his hands together and squeezed them more and more tightly until his fingers turned red and his knuckles went white.
I had asked the Bosnian Serb commander about the siege his forces had laid to the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. The massacre there, the worst of the many atrocities perpetrated against Bosnian Muslims by Mladic’s army, was still two years away but this was his way of demonstrating that there would be no escape for its inhabitants.
That gesture by Mladic, arrested in Serbia on Thursday after 16 years on the run from charges of genocide in the Bosnian war, spoke more about his ruthlessness and obsession than any of the words he uttered during an interview that lasted for more than two hours.
Mladic, a former Yugoslav Army officer, was a familiar face to reporters covering the war in Bosnia, but few journalists got to spend time with him. I had the opportunity to pass an evening alone with him and a Reuters colleague from Belgrade at the Bosnian Serb headquarters in Pale, outside Sarajevo, in May 1993.
Arrogant and dismissive of the United Nations and the international mediators trying to end the war, Mladic was at the height of his powers. Serb forces were in control of 70 percent of Bosnian territory, the capital Sarajevo was at the mercy of his heavy artillery, and Mladic was breathing fire.
The World Trade Center in New York had been bombed in February 1993 and, recalling that attack, Mladic threatened to bomb London and Washington if U.N. troops tried to intervene. “One furious Serb can do a lot of damage with just one match,” he said matter-of-factly, almost slipping in the remark as an aside.
An illuminating profile, and an intriguing reminder that the human spectrum encompasses high-functioning sociopaths, utterly ruthless yet “charming” individuals. Whether in military uniforms or business suits, they are always with us.
Tarmac torture
By Chris Taylor
“You weren’t on that Cathay Pacific flight, were you?”
People have been asking me this question with a unique mix of sympathy and outright horror. And the answer is yes. The one that idled for 11 hours on the tarmac of New York’s JFK Airport, as we waited in vain for a gate. With two kids crawling over me, ages 2 and 5.
Yes, I was on that flight. And this is what it was like.
It was actually our second time boarding Flight 888, since the previous day, we’d been delayed until 1 a.m. and then sat on the Vancouver tarmac for three hours, until they finally sent us away at around 4 a.m. because of the blizzard in New York City. Frustrating, sure. But still within the bounds of human normalcy.
It was only the next day that things spun out into some kind of sadistic psychological experiment. My wife likened the experience to having slipped into Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. But I saw more of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit, the existential classic where mismatched strangers are thrown together for eternity in a tightly enclosed space. As he wrote, “Hell is other people.”
We landed a little after 2 a.m. Tuesday, following another three hours on the Vancouver tarmac and another five hours in the air. I’m unlikely to ever forget the pilot’s pronouncements that followed. They reminded me of a Stephen King cover blurb for the bestselling book The Hot Zone, about a breakout of the killer Ebola virus. King said the first chapter was the most horrifying thing he had ever read – and then it kept getting worse. In our case, each time the pilot’s voice came over the intercom, things kept getting worse.
I just don’t get any of it. Why couldn’t the airline just use the wheelie stairs and let people walk off the plane onto the tarmac? I mean I understand that their are regulations but seriously? No one could make an exception? I find this whole ordeal more a disgusting example of how completely irrational our bureaucratic system is, than of how crappy it was to fly during this ordeal. I was delayed 3 days in Florida during this time and it was terrible, but at least I wasn’t made to get on a plane and just sit there. There is no excuse for treating paying customers this way.
The dinosaur has arrived — an original story by R.L. Stine
– This original story by R.L. Stine was written for Reuters.com. R.L.’s books are read all over the world. So far, he has sold over 350 million books, making him one of the best-selling children’s authors in history. –
Shivering in the hall, I looked forward to the warmth of the radio studio. I felt the cold as if it was trapped inside my overcoat. The frosted glass of the door looked like snow to me. I pushed it open with one gloved hand.
Here I am, everyone. Emerson Grant, the veteran and revered news anchor. Yes, it’s Christmas Eve, and the dinosaur has arrived to give his annual review of the news.
As if anyone cared. The news this year was all bad. Banks failing… war everywhere… folks living in their cars. Why would people tune in to hear a summary of all their sadnesses?
I gazed around the outer office. Anyone here? The dim ceiling lights made everything gray, as if behind a curtain. No one at the reception desk. No one at the other desks.
I know it’s Christmas Eve, people, but I can’t do this alone.
I shoved open the studio door and stepped inside. The same gray light, like a faded photograph. No sign of anyone. I glanced at the clock. It had stopped, the second hand stuck on three. I felt a stir of uneasiness. Strange.
Great story! I am not familiar with the author’s work but my wife, a former elementary school teacher, was all over it!
Thanks for sharing, Reuters! A nice gift from you and R.L.
A future for news
Devin Wenig is CEO, Thomson Reuters Markets
Much of the last few years have been spent discussing how journalism will survive in the face of the immense changes taking place in the industry. The digital revolution, the shift in advertising-based business models and the explosion of content sources has turned the consuming, dissemination and publishing of news on its head.
But the debate has shifted from will it survive to how will it survive? How will media organizations deliver value while adapting to consumers’ new demands and capabilities, which will only continue to change?
Blaming Google for disrupting the advertising market or waiting for the iPad to replicate offline content are not strategies. Overcapacity and commoditization are not the most popular industry topics to discuss. But look at any news aggregation site and the thousands of stories about any given current event that have little or no differentiation and it’s self evident. When local markets were walled off and self sustainable, there was room for this level of duplication. In the age of information ubiquity, there is not.
News organizations need a horizontal platform. They need a broad, fast and fact-based news capability. The only economic model that makes sense is a shared industry capability. However, no single news provider can provide all the requirements in a rapidly shifting and dynamic market for current awareness.
Thomson Reuters is investing heavily in news. We believe that our history, brand and broad capability give us an excellent starting position to build that industry platform. We will supplement our unique offering with investments such as the one announced today to support our U.S. and global media business with deep U.S. content. Additionally, because we know that we will never be able to satisfy all of the industry’s needs, we’ll also provide a platform so that sources can monetize their news and content through our distribution channels. That marriage will make the industry more efficient while freeing up journalists to focus on really adding value for their customers.
Where is that value? In vertical content and in true digital innovation. Vertical, valuable journalism is ultimately about expertise and about connecting the dots. It can be based on an editorial voice, a point of view or a set of common interests. While profit pools have been eroded in general news, they have gathered in vertical markets such as corporate industry news and deep expertise in topics of interest such as sports, politics, weather and many other niches. Editors in these verticals generally have a distinct editorial voice and deep connection to the producers and the consumers of newsflow. When journalism at this level really connects, it can reflect or even create a “virtual community.” For Thomson Reuters, vertical content means the world’s deepest, fastest and most relevant news for professionals. Our editorial goal is to be indispensable to our customers.
It certainly will be interesting how this evolves. I do see the extensibility of your vision outside of news into all information sources.
What is implied in your blog is an evolution toward the potential of harnessing the power of crowd sourcing, both dynamic (such as Twitter) and persistent (blogging, etc.). This is not a small undertaking given the question of trusted and unbiased content, though this an area where Thomson Reuters leads the competition.
Most popular videos of 2010
From the iPad to a bus siege in Manila to top model gaffes and bejeweled bras, 2010 was an eventful year. Reuters videographers were on the scene at many of these major stories to bring viewers the latest news, often at great risk to themselves as seen by the tragic death of a Reuters cameraman in Thailand. Their work, sometimes daring, sometimes fun, prompted our audience to click and share. Here’s a look at the most popular video from each month.
JANUARY: Apple ready for big device debut
The launch of Apple’s iPad was a highly anticipated event and it propelled this preview video to the most popular for January.
FEBRUARY: Luge crash death overshadows Games
The Vancouver Winter Olympic Games began with tragedy after Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed while on a training run. The horrific circumstances of the crash and what this meant for the upcoming Games kept viewers clicking on this video.
MARCH: A monorail that gets you pedaling
Weird and wonderful technological advancements are guaranteed to peak reader attention and this pedal-powered vehicle was no exception.
from For the Record:
Toward a more thoughtful conversation on stories
Visitors to this space may recall that I wrote this summer about the issues Reuters and other news organizations face in dealing with reader comments on stories.
I’ve become increasingly concerned about the quality of discourse in comments on news stories on Reuters.com and on other major news sites. On some stories, the “conversation” has been little more than partisans slinging invective at each other under the cloak of anonymity.
I believe our time-challenged, professional readers want to see a more rewarding conversation—and my colleagues who lead Reuters.com are introducing a new process for comments that I believe will help bring that about.
The new process, which gives special status to readers whose comments have passed muster in the past, won’t address the anonymity issue, but I do think it is an important step toward a more civil and thoughtful conversation.
Let me introduce Richard Baum, Reuters Global Editor for Consumer Media, to tell you about the new process:
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Like many major news publishers, we’ve agonized over how to balance our enthusiasm for reader comments on stories with our belief that few people would benefit from a free-for-all. Most of our readers respect our request for comments that “advance the story,” by submitting relevant anecdotes, links and data or by challenging our reporting when they think we’ve fallen short of our editorial standards. It’s rewarding, sometimes even exhilarating, to see the way our audience builds on our coverage.
from Reuters Editors:
Link economy and journalism
The following is a guest column by Chris Ahearn, President, Media at Thomson Reuters.
Last summer, I published a blog post that laid out my feelings about the link economy and its positive contribution to the evolution of the business of journalism. One year later, Reuters.com continues to encourage linking to the rich content we offer and even pulling interesting excerpts for discussion in a different forum. In exchange for that occasional use of our content, we ask others to respect the hard work our journalists put into their craft and in some cases risk their lives in doing so by offering prominent links and attribution.
We encourage bloggers and individuals to use a teaser and perhaps add their own perspective to enhance the online experience. The RSS feeds on Reuters.com are designed to make this easy to do.
Recently, we engaged in a controlled experiment with Attributor to identify websites that republish complete or near complete versions of Reuters articles and have a commercial model, without a license or agreement. In many cases those websites utilize third party ad networks to monetize their audiences. Some question why we object to websites posting full copies of our stories without a licensing agreement. The answer is simple – we believe it is neither fair nor legal nor ethical.
Our efforts to identify such environments are focused on opening up a conversation with these publishers to create a mutually beneficial relationship. In the last few days, we received many emails about this experiment, varied in tone from humorous to helpful to downright nasty. It seems, however, that some of the facts are being overlooked.
First, we absolutely respect and encourage people to discuss and debate breaking news, particularly when referencing our reporting. We believe it makes societies stronger and are delighted when it happens. Second, we expect websites and users to kindly respect how we wish our content is linked to and excerpted as opposed to copying and pasting (again, that is why we make our RSS feeds available and always welcome linking to the Reuters.com network). Third, if websites are commercial in nature (i.e. take advertising) and want to post our full articles we should have a fair commercial relationship.
We have established commercial license agreements with some of the biggest brands in the world to utilize the work of our journalists, but we also have tailor made agreements for smaller publishers, bloggers and individuals to create a model that works well for all parties.
